Allies and Enemies

Chapter Fourteen: Obsidia

For around two weeks, I heard the sounds of training as I passed daily by the training room. Every day, I headed to the war room with one intention: to find the villains' base. I spent day and night trying to find the base and spent a lot of my time scanning star charts. I woke up with bags and dark shadows under my eyes.

"Ugh, we must be missing something," I groaned to Rowan one day.

"Maybe these are incomplete," Rowan studied the maps.

"I'm not sure," I sighed with defeat. "We've tried everything. The Jedi meditated, combined Force powers, and looked freaking everywhere... It seems like it's just... erased from existence. But they must be hiding somewhere."

"Have we looked at the places where gravity gets... wonky?" Rowan asked.

"Yes, and there's nothing there," I said. "I've used the portal room to get to all those places, and there's nothing." I sighed. "Wait a minute. The Unknown Regions. We can look there."

"The Unknown Regions are huge," Rowan said. "How are we going to find a planet, let alone a base, where the villains are hiding?" I thought.

"I have no idea," I said, defeated. Suddenly I felt a pang in my heart. From the Force. "Wait. I think I can try to find it." I felt another pang. I closed my eyes. "I see... someone being tortured. I don't know who. I see... obsidian. Lots of obsidian. I —" Rowan snapped her fingers, breaking me from my trance.

"I know the planet. Obsidia, named after the rock that it's made of," Rowan said. I groaned.

"How have we not known?"

"I don't know. Their base would have serious cloaking technology though," Rowan pursed her lips, looking through tens of hundreds of files.

"Look for it, and send me the coordinates ASAP," I said, already heading out of the room. "I'm gonna bring someone with me, probably Shahanda." I ran out and checked all the meditation rooms, as Shahanda was big on meditation. She was in the third-to-last room.

"Shahanda!" I exclaimed, snapping her out of her daze.

"Kianna!" she said happily. "I've seen the most incredible magic and miracles since I've been here... what's going on?"

"We have a lead on the villains' base," I said, panting slightly from the run. "I want you to come with me."

"Alright," Shahanda agreed without a moment's hesitation. That's what I liked about her, her fearlessness.

"Come on," I said, leading her to the portal room. I went to one of the doors and messaged Rowan. "Rowan, I need those coordinates please!"

"Almost there..." Rowan said. "Got it! Sending coordinates now." I inputted the coordinates into a pad beside one of the doors and heard a ding.

"We'll be back soon, Rowan," I said.

"I'm warning you, Obsidia is full of evil and darkness," Rowan cautioned. "I can't reach the planet, so you'll have to teleport off yourselves. I think there's a cliff somewhere near, so you can use that."

"Thanks, Rowan," I said, ending the comm. "Come on, Shahanda. Let's find out what the villains are doing." We jumped through the portal door and fell, rolling and quickly hopping up on our feet. I looked around.

"Where are we?" Shahanda asked in awe. Rowan was right. The entire planet was like Earth, but it was made of obsidian, black as night. A weak sun barely shone through the dark haze.

"I have absolutely no idea," I replied. I tapped my screen a couple of times and scanned the land. "There's an area high with electrical power. Come on, they might be there." Shahanda and I hiked for a while, all the while looking around at the barren, black landscape. It was pretty and deadly at the same time. I couldn't see any life.

"I wonder if the fact that the whole planet is obsidian makes it so that there's no life," Shahanda wondered.

"Look, I think we finally found it," I said. "Coming up on the area." We hung back. The base was in a large valley, so we scanned from the cliff above. "Oh, my gods." I could see Jedi, wizards, demigods, elves, Grisha, and Shu Han. "There are so many."

"Is that... Yoda?" Shahanda gasped in surprise. "This can't be hypnosis. Nothing can turn Yoda."

"But the question is, how did they?" I asked. "Look, they've got people of all sorts, and they look fine."

"They're training too," Shahanda pointed out. "Oh gods, they've got archery ranges, lightsabers, wands... so much." I gasped, whimpering in shock.

"No, no no no, this can't be possible."

"What is it?" Shahanda asked.

"Sophie," I breathed. "No, no, she's dead! She died burning in Everblaze!" Even as I said the words, I was less and less sure of them.

"We've got a lot to say," Shahanda said, slinking away from the edge. "Come on, Kianna." She pulled me to my feet and I reached out a hand, Saqqara twitching with sadness as a fragile butterfly.

"Sophie."